Escape
by Terra Anatase
Summary: The parties at Relena's school are not parentally suppervised, and trouble starts when Relena goes for a lonely walk down a hallway, only to come face to face with a gun, and her utmost wish to escape in her dead life. H+R!!!! Mature themes, limey-limey,


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AN: Woohoo! I wrote something in my spare time! The joys of coming home from school early when you are a Senior in High School. It's a spectacular feeling :) Well this is somewhat altered for Relena is forced to go to school, lives with her brother Milliardo, and she feels like her life is over, as most *ehem* young adults do. But seriously, she feels like what she is now amounts to nothing and she would love for Heero to fulfill his promise to her, her escape.

~~Escape~~

She could not stand it any longer. She just had to get out and get some fresh air. She got up from the chair in the large, spacious living room that held what must have been a hundred people. Hardly adults, at age 16, and they were allowed to attend a party with no supervision other than the house help that lived and would remain on the other side of the house for the entire evening. 

Relena stood up from the chair and weaved her way through the groups of kids her age, all dressed in their finest semi-formal clothes, and all with a glass of champagne in one hand. All children of people with political ties were taught how to act 'civilized', and so being classy was the way to be when you attended Ellistine, an extremely private school.

The few people she knew were across the room speaking, what seemed to be, very enthusiastically to the party's host. "Probably attempting to get in with the 'cool' crowd," she chuckled at, and then dismissed the thought as she finally reached the balcony and took in the beautiful view of the starry night stretching out beyond the green, lush mountains behind the mansion. She stepped forward, only to see a set of chairs to the side, and they just happened to be occupied by a couple.

"Do you mind?" the girl yelled out looking up at Relena and brushing her ruffled, short hair to the side. With that Relena blushed and whispered her apologies as she stepped back and closed the glass doors.

She was again in the room filled with the smells of alcohol and an environment full of sexual intentions beyond all comprehension to the half-witted parents of these young adults. Kids, and they think they know everything.

Relena had almost had enough but as she made her way through to the refreshments table she notice a hallway that had many statues along the sides. Finding anything more interesting than conversing with intoxicated children, she decided to tour the hall and see where it may take her. Her nights at these parties were always a bit of a bore. If she was not bombarded with girls and guys asking 'what it was like', she was sitting alone by a window, or exploring through gardens and anything that was open for guests to view.

As she stepped into the hall way the candle light from the lamps on the wall gave everything a golden glow and a warm, but unexpecting feeling. Relena read every inscription below the sculptures and statues finding them all fascinating. Many she remembered from her art history class and she would smile and inwardly congratulate herself if she guessed correctly.

Coming to a close at the end she read the last inscription. "The West Pediment of the Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens." Now if she remembered correctly, that was Ancient Greece. An area of Europe very nearby her own homeland. Satisfied with her answer she turned to continue, but only found the end of the hallway around the corner, and a room with the door open and a light on inside.

Curiosity killed the cat, yes, but sheer boredom surely out did death. So, Relena peeked around the door and knocked lightly, "Hello? Anyone here?"

Right away she heard a shuffle of feet and a mumble that sounded muffled. Hesitant to barge in she slowly moved around the door's edge and looked to her left. At first terror struck her features as she stepped back, unsure of the situation and who the mad man behind the gun was. Then as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room, she had figured it out.

"Oh no you do not," she said as she stepped forward and lowered her eyebrows in anger. As she moved the familiar click of the safety lock sounded, silencing even the squirming man held behind the man with the gun.

The light flickered softly over her face, and over his. They stood for a moment in silence, depicting each other's moves and possible moves. Shadows played tricks on his face, making him seem like he was smirking.

"I remember this part," she said moving to the side away from the gun pointed at her head. He just stood there, gun cocked and the young man in his grasp held in place watching intensively in awe.

Relena moved across the room gracefully, and smiled simply, to keep the situation stable. "This is the part where I vainly attempt to talk you out of it, and you, of coarse, threaten my life if I tell." She circled around to the point where she stood in direct moonlight and all he could do was watch, his face emotionless, but his mind yelling and screaming at his body to do something . . . anything.

"Funny thing is, we've already been acquainted, and I wouldn't say we had such a simple run in. If I remember correctly, you have already told me you were going to kill me, and yet I stand here before you both." Her smile faded as a serious tone set in on her voice and face. "Very much alive." She moved toward him again, her movements slow and precautionary.

"Shoot me now." Her voice did not waver as she stared down the only man to ever spark such a fire in her body. "If ever a time and place, its now. This boy is not who you want."

As she closed in he moved to the side. The man with the gun forcefully pushed and pulled the other guy out to the small balcony and shut the glass door behind him. Relena ran to the door to follow and stopped at the door as he threw the man down and shot him perfectly through the left temple. Blood splattered against the door and Relena screamed in horror as she fumbled with the door's handle.

Relena threw the door open and quickly knelt beside the young man surrounded by an oozing puddle of red, thick liquid. She felt for a pulse on his wrist as tears began to fall and she shook his body.

"Mission Accomplished."

"HEERO!" she screamed as he stood on the ledge next to the exterior wall. He slowly turned his head and looked down upon the woman with black streaks down her cheeks. "Why not me?" she said through tears, an astonished and hateful look upon her face.

"You won't say anything." he asked in a deep voice, so quiet, and so cold. It was more of a question than an answer, for he stood there a moment in stale silence, remembering her scream of his name in agony and desperation.

Relena knew the difference between right and wrong. She was who she was for her inexplicable ability of moralizing situations and choosing the better. It was never simple with Heero . . .

"Never," she said, looking down at the blood on her hands. She looked over the body of the young man she had met over a year ago. Memories from of the boy from school ran through her mind and she quietly prayed for the young man's soul.

Heero had already left, and she knew that a mission like this must have been of great importance. She stood up, with what little dignity and grace she could muster, and walked toward the door to find help. Inside she felt useless and dead to the world, but outside she held her facade.

~*~*~*~*~

With direct orders to go straight home after she gave a statement to the police, Relena felt like crying. She felt like crying out for him, but she knew he would not come to talk to her.

The world had felt like a blur since she was crowned, denounced, and then recognized as a hero to the world. Things in her life came and gone, but she didn't notice. One thing that stayed perfectly clear was her image of a boy that would not take her life.

Instead of listening to her brother, Relena decided the "I'm a teenager" excuse would work, and went to her beach. The one place where she could think, and straighten up her blurred mesh of a life.

"How much bloodshed will I see in my lifetime?" she asked towards the heavens, praying someone would answer her. But no one ever did. So she did the only thing she knew how to do. She said another silent prayer. There was nothing more she could do.

She had no power to help the millions in their crisis. Her brother would not take charge of the empty position as Foreign Minister, and so Relena was forced to watch her world crumble from the sidelines, stuck in a school full of ignorant and spoiled children that did not know the first thing about good politics. And they are who is supposed to run the government next?

The whole idea of it made her sick to her stomach. And sometimes she would get very sick. Sick with the thoughts that she could do nothing, and sick with herself for being so selfish as to back down. How weak she truly was, sitting here, alone on a beach, hoping for some god-given miracle.

However, there was one thing that disgusted her more than anything about herself. That was the fact that she always came here in hopes of seeing him. But for now, a place to clear her thoughts would suffice. Relena had only been out of position for seven months, and she felt like she was wasting away and that there was nothing she could do about that either.

So she did as she was told. Day to Day...week to week...month to month. With that, she got up and rubbed off the sand on her arms and made her way back to the car.

~*~*~*~*~

"Oh Relena you must come," the girl exclaimed in giddy excitement. "Everyone is hoping you'll attend."

"Sure, I'll be there," she said with the brightest, kindest, fakest smile she had mastered using years ago. As she walked off down the hall, she saw a familiar brown-haired boy walk briskly past in the other direction. As she turned around to find him, he was standing directly in front of her, which almost made her jump back in surprise. Not that it was completely unexpected of him.

"Heero?"

"Relena..." he trailed off in a monotone voice, staring stoically at her. "I ..."

"Shh. Not here, not now," she said in a quieted voice as she pulled him closer. As the last of the students in the hallway dispersed into their respected classes, Relena leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "Tonight."

~*~*~*~*~

Tired of making acquaintances with what felt like the entire cities teenagers and young teachers, Relena sat and watched the wild, half drunken teenagers dance in the crowded space in the middle of the ballroom. There must have been five hundred people at this party and she had almost had enough. If she didn't have another reason to be there she would have left.

So she sat in her long golden dress that could have passed for a slip, hanging at her curves and cutting low in the back. Her hair long hair, to match her dress, caught every eye in the room for she was not one to follow the crowd in "high school" and cut it short. Her elegance kept the party at a more sophisticated level than any other party. Were her presence not there, the party would not be the same.

The scene was quite a site. On the outside the less popular, and what seemed like happier and more carefree, people danced in a very conventional way. Each other front to front dancing and having a wonderful time. But towards the middle front of the room, where the orchestra and DJ were stationed, one found that they were in a different world.

The much more popular, and in school what seemed like the more refined, people had much more than a simple dance party. Towards the center of the large gathering of people, one would find the most provocative, sexual dancing ever scene. Although it was another teenage party with hardly and adults supervising, they would still all separate to dance in ballroom style to a few particular songs. But, these were close proximity dances and one could still not see what was going on in the center of the crowd from the outside.

So Relena sat there, watching the room for any familiar faces that happened to walk by. After about a half hour later, Relena, finding no one to converse with, decided that she would try something to get a certain someone's attention. Hopefully, if she remembered correctly, the song request she gave would bring about her destiny. Maybe tonight, he could end it all for her.

However, Relena was not one to be down, and she always found something to keep her busy. Something to take her mind off of her empty life. Something to keep her from losing her mastered and unique facade. One thing she knew she could not think about was the only thing that was really still an important part of her cold existence. If she did, she felt selfish for wanting something that she couldn't have, and for wanting him to give her the easy way out of life.

And there he was, standing across the way staring at her intently, and then making his way across the room. Her escape had come for her finally. She had heard the words before, but tonight, oh tonight would be the real thing. Tonight she would feel his kiss, and she would leave this all behind.

As he neared, she dropped her facade, and her face fell into a sorrowful look. There was no need to hold it up for him, he saw through her pitiful, weak soul. Yet she did notice something in him that actually made her feel sorrow for the lost angel standing before her. His eyes, his face, and his whole body looked tired. Drained, tried, and exhausted. As he stepped before her she held her arms slightly forward, almost embracing, but only accepting his effort to hold her as they danced to a song they had not heard in years.

Setting off the tone of the crazed center/front people, a circle moved around the two that held on to each other with slight closeness, and full support. The crowd had spilt off into two's, and throughout the song, Relena and Heero danced, eyes closed, and mouths slightly parted as they relived the moment. Both smiled after Heero spun Relena out once, and pulled her in closer. Never had Relena felt so right dancing with someone, or standing next to someone in her whole life.

What was odd to Relena, was that he was the only thing that felt real in her life. She had disregarded the rest of the world as a distant memory she choose not to pay attention to. And yet, to the rest of the world, Heero wasn't real.

Heero tilted his head closer to Relena's head, and pulled her closer. Relena set her head on his shoulder and sighed. Who wouldn't want to live out the their last beautiful moments in life? The song had changed, and Relena turned her head up towards Heero's and waited for him to open his eyes and look at her. Almost abruptly he did and his intense eyes held her eyes in a lock. It seemed to be the best way he communicated. And you could see all what he had seen in his life, which was a sad, sad life.

What surprised her next was what he said.

"You're just like me," he said in a whisper, as they slowly swayed to the melodic piano in the song.

"No, you are so much stronger than I," she said looking away and again setting her head on his shoulder. "And sadder."

She felt her chin pushed up to face him as he said, "For some reason I see the same in you." Relena set her head down and a tear slipped as her nose tingled and caused her much discomfort.

"I could never know the pain you suffer through, and I know I could not do what you do. It would hurt much more than the death I feel now." She held back a sniffle and remembered that she must smile to keep it together. Feeling herself lose rhythm in step, she backed away from him. Heero reached out for her again, and Relena just stood back and smiled at him, and turned away.

She walked briskly out the room and followed a sidewalk path towards a fountain that must have been the entrance to a garden. But, she could not keep him from following her out. Walking around to the other side of the fountain she stopped and reached out to grab a rose. As she breathed in the beautiful and soft, yellow rose she noticed the moon's light was all but blocked out but the shadow of the earth. Most of the light came from the outside house lights in the distance, and the small lamp on the edge of the entrance.

"These parties are so awful. Children playing pretend and following their hormones, not caring at all about the world that they are sheltered from. It's even more selfish than I am," she said as she sat on the edge of the fountain. Heero walked toward the same flower and picked it. He walked over to Relena and sat next to her.

"Relena, I can't kill you-" he began.

"Why?" she replied immediately. Her first hope was that he needed her to stay for him, but she knew the answer she would get. And that answer always angered her.

"Relena I came here to tell you goodbye. The world no longer needs a man that is mentally unstable and who's only life purpose was to kill." He spoke as if he had known this day would come now, and that now he was not meant to be here anymore. "But you . . . you're still needed. Maybe you don't feel like it now, but you will be. And my missions are done with now. I'm tired, and I give you the last of my strength, so much I had received from you so long ago when you inspired billions of people. Every human in the universe."

"Heh . . . I don't think you've ever said that much to me before," she thought aloud yet in a soft voice. After a moment of silence she spoke up, "And you don't have to stop."

Heero moved over and turned to lay on the edge of the fountain, setting his head near where she sat. "Since my missions ended, I've had time to think about things. I found that there was nothing left for me to do other than find you and talk to you." As he continued on about his thoughts on what was left for him, what was left for the world, and for her, Relena moved towards his head and lifted it up. Taking his openness about life as an opportunity, she slipped under his head and let it rest on her thigh. A very motherly reaction for someone so lost as she.

"So you're saying," she said while brushing back his hair and running her hand through it, "you don't think it's my time yet?" She giggled, finding his change in heart unusual and not very logical. But maybe, she thought, maybe he had always felt she should stay alive for her people, and lord knew she hoped he would want her to stay alive for him. Oh how she needed his strength to go on, and here he sat thinking he wasn't needed in this world. But no . . . she knew better than to think selfish and very childish thoughts such as those. Mentally Relena scolded herself for thinking like that again.

"Relena I-" he started.

She laughed out loud now. "Haha, I believe that is the third time you've said my name Heero. Please don't talk to me like we're acquaintances." She thought about the abrupt rudeness she had used and felt guilty for speaking out again. She had gotten carried away with the humor in this, it was not a funny conversation.

Heero sat up and looked at her, a grin on his face, and Relena bowed her head and turned in embarrassment. "Thank you," he said to her back. "Thank you for showing me what to fight for, and helping me realize that death is not always the answer." With that he stood up and began walking around the fountain to leave.

"Wait!" she yelled as she turned around with tears in her eyes. Heero turned around slowly, much like the time on the balcony, yet his eyes weren't dead orbs filled with nothing. He wore his heart on his sleeve, his pain in his eyes, and you could feel his heartache of a thousand murders to be paid for. Paid for, in what felt like to him, in eternal hell.

"Wait Heero," she said as she stood up and ran to him, holding her dress up to her ankles as she ran to him. "Please . . . please don't leave me. I'm so lost without you, without anything else in my life . . . without you. I need you, oh . . . please don't leave me alone . . ." she said through tears. Whatever was left of her perfect facade she held would leave with him, and she would be left to die.

"I can't stay, I don't deserve to stay here," he said embracing the frail woman and breathing in the scent of her hair. "I don't deserve to stay with you."

"Yes you do . . . you do because I say so and I want you," she said softly into his shirt. "For me . . . please . . ." she cried.

"Relena . . . what makes you think I can help?"

"Just stay with me," she said, "forever." She slowly let go of her weight and slipped into his arms deeper, and then gracefully fell to the ground, kneeling towards each other.

They stayed like that for a moment. She couldn't stop crying the tears of a young girl that had died, and a woman that felt like she was dying. Nothing was as it was in the fairy tales, and she couldn't live this life anymore, not without him. Heero looked down at her and kissed her head. "I'll stay."

He said so softly as she slowed her choking tears, and he brushed back her hair behind her ears. He couldn't figure out why he agreed. There was nothing here for him to live for. Well maybe there was her, after all she was his strength. Maybe they were supposed to meet each other that day on the beach. Maybe they were each other's strength.

Relena wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks, and slowly rose her head to the side of his. Both cheek to cheek, looking down. Without regard to thought, they slowly brought their heads closer and looking at each other. They looked up at each other's eyes and down again, and Heero lost any reason to his morbid plans to leave, and his mind was clouded with thoughts of a future with the woman in front of him. In a second they had reached for each other and embraced in the most sensual, tender, and heartfelt kiss either had ever had.

Still enthralled in the kiss, they both locked hands together and slowly stood up, not taking ones lips away from the others. As they stood Heero brought their arms up above their heads and let go as he quickly wrapped his arms around her body and held her closer, as she wrapped hers around his neck. The kiss was the longest, most needy kiss they could muster with all the emotions created and released, in a romantic moment on a starry night by the garden.

Suddenly Relena realized that the night was much more beautiful than she had thought before, and she wanted more like these. All of them ending in them kissing, and being in his arms. He could never leave her again. Relena smiled at this thought.

So did Heero, and he then moved his hand further down Relena's back, which caused her to open her eyes in shock, and picked her up and swung her around and around.

They both broke apart from the kiss and starred at each other for the longest time. Taking in each facial feature, every curve on one another's lips, the different blues in their eyes. Not one second was lost.

They both turned, still held together with their arms around each other, and began walking down the sidewalk, and into the large garden filled with tropical trees, making walls along the pathway. Stolen kisses at every corner, and crazy thoughts running through each other's minds that certainly were never there before.

Heero could only stare at the beautiful woman at his side and wonder if every curve of her was like her lips, and what they all tasted like. Not in a bad way, but whatever walked right next to him was definitely the most interesting piece of art he had ever seen.

"Stop," he said, as he pulled her in for yet another kiss. He slowly backed her onto the grass, and then knelt down before her. She followed his every movement in excited passion and anticipation of what was to follow. They both lay in the grass, her propped on her elbows, and he sat beside her and leaning over her body to reach her mouth, and her neck, and her shoulder.

They both shook uncontrollably, unknowing of what next, but both feeling the flow of everything, and quite aware of each other's body's heat. How hot it was that night, and were it not for the cool breeze that came from the east Relena thought she might want to leave. But she was far too comfortable to move. Actually comfortable with herself, and no longer sad.

Heero stopped, and looked up at her, running his hands over her cheek, neck, shoulder, and down her arms, and back up again. Something she never would have seen in a million years in Heero's eyes stared back at her same eyes. Neither could deny the passion they felt, and how right it was. And neither would admit aloud that as horrible as it sounded, they were so happy to forget their pain while in each other's arms.

Feeling the loss of his body pinned against hers, Relena pulled his body back down to hers, "Do you have anywhere to be?" She looked up in hopes.

Heero looked down and his lips curled up in a rare half smile, "With you, yes." Relena was sure that she was never depressed about anything, and she couldn't ever be again. With all thought to the world lost, they both succumb to each other's wants and needs. Both in the middle of the tropical forest, a thousand miles from and people, and both never wanting leave either's side. Heero and Relena laid in the grass and made love all night long, undisturbed, and with the passions of the strongest love created in a few moments of understanding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

R&R please! And let me know if you think this story should have a lemon counterpart to finish it off properly...I considered it, but it would be a first.

Love,

Olly


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